By J. Graber
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Scottsdale City Council members do not get along very well ... at all.

In fact, a recent poll by Lancaster Leadership scored the group’s culture a 13 out of 100.

After having worked with over 130 government teams at the federal, state and local levels, the score was the lowest founder Lancaster Leadership owner Julie Lancaster has ever seen.

Councilman Barry Graham does not think the dysfunction is affecting the council’s ability to get things done though.

“I think this city council is getting more done than we’ve ever seen,” he said.

“Voters don’t elect us to get along. They elect us to vote for them.”
But Graham is part of a four-member voting bloc that took over in January, when the council turned over.

The blokc consists of Graham and Councilwoman Kathy Littlefield, who were already on council, as well as new Council Member Adam Kwasman and Vice Mayor Jan Dubauskas.

Together they have pushed a conservative agenda through that has left some council members feeling alienated.

“This is not my favorite council,” Councilwoman Solange Whitehead said at a council retreat May 13. “I think my colleagues know that. We’ve lost a sustainability plan. We’ve lost diversity programs. We’ve lost two hundred years of institutional knowledge (due to employees leaving).”

Mayor Lisa Borowsky has said on multiple occasions that the group of four are trying to “undermine” her.

For instance the four voted against her request to delay assigning a contractor to design the parking garage earmarked for First Street and Brown Avenue in Old Town for 30 days to give her a chance to find a possible alternate location. A new location could keep the Scottsdale Farmer’s Market in place and would preserve the view of the old Catholic mission near the site.

Likewise, the group pushed through a vote to forego a national search for a new city manager and to appoint city manager Greg Caton -- whom Borowsky ultimately voted for.

Also, the group voted in a surprise move during the May 6 council meeting to order Caton to remove two positions from her office and move them under the city council’s authority.

“You and a couple of other (city council) members want to undermine the mayor, me, who was elected by 72,000 voters in Scottsdale,” Borowsky said to Kwasman after he moved to approve reorganization. “I am very opposed to this. I think it is a very inappropriate motion to make and really shows true colors as to what’s going on here.”

Dubauskas insists there’s no organized effort by the four to undermine Borowsky.

“I’m very sorry to hear she feels that way,” Dubaukas said. “That is not my intention. I’m just working to deliver for the residents of Scottsdale. I’m not focused on anything other than working together for the residents of Scottsdale.”

Littlefield questioned the accuracy of Lancaster’s findings and said there has always been division on council in the 10 years she’s been there.
“The reasons it’s showing up so harsh now is because it’s in the other direction (ideologically) from where council was before,” she said.

Littlefield and Kwasman both pointed to a 7-0 vote at the May 6 council meeting to grant a conditional use permit to the Pour Decisions bar for one year, to give the owners an opportunity to prove they can be good neighbors to other businesses around them.

Both Littlefield and Kwasman said they were going to vote no on the permit originally until Whitehead came up with the one-year compromise.

“The council majority gets along beautifully and very personably with the minority,” Kwasman said. “I can speak to my own relationship with (Councilwoman) Marryann McAllen with whom I have many disagreements on policy but she is one of my best friends on the council. I find her lovely, even though we disagree.”

Kwasman did acknowledge that he, Littlefield, Graham and Dubauskas do tend to vote together much of the time, but that comes from an ideological standpoint and is not evidence that they are working against anybody.
But Borowsky said the May 13 retreat itself was yet another example of the four of them working with Caton to undermine her.

She was shocked to hear at the beginning of the retreat that the meeting would not cover how to improve working relationships with the council members.

Caton said other council members said they wanted to look at specific issues facing the city instead during the meeting, so the format was changed.
That visibly upset Borowsky.

“If you talked to other council members and decided to switch gears on what we talked about, I certainly was unaware,” Borowsky said. “It sounds like you took a vote and I’m confused by that.”

It also took several minutes of Borowsky insisting on getting the results of Lancaster’s poll on cohesiveness before she got an answer.

Lancaster referred the question over to Caton who tried to change the subject before acknowledging that he did not remember the answer. Borowsky then asked him if he gave Lancaster permission to release the information, to which he said yes.

“Thirteen,” Lancaster finally blurted out. “Thirteen, - one, three.”

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